WD Elements can't be opened anymore

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ALittleStar

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Dec 27, 2016
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Hello! I have a WD Elements 1TB External Hard Drive and yesterday morning it was working properly. However, in the afternoon, after plugging it in in my Retina MacBook 2016 with macOS Sierra, it was no recognised anymore. I tried diskutil list(http://imgur.com/a/SU1PL) and diskutil info(http://imgur.com/a/dZmA6) and it appears here, but not in Finder. I tried data recovery solutions and they just load until I disconnect the HDD. So I booted into Boot Camp, Windows 10. The drive shows in Windows Explorer as Local Disk. Clicking it just loads, and right clicking makes Explorer unusable until I disconnect the drive. Same story with the data recovery solutions. Disk Management gets stuck with: Connecting to Virtual Disk Service and diskpart and chkdsk do not load until I disconnect the HDD. I also booted Ubuntu into a virtual machine in macOS and tried to mount the drive but it shows an unexpected error. What should I do? I do not want to format the drive. Also tried multiple computers and multiple cables and got the same results. Please help me. Thank you!
 
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Starcruiser

Starcruiser

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May 18, 2013
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See if you can get CrystalDiskInfo to load. I find this to be a very reliable program for checking drive health, not contents. If the drive is failing all the utilities you mentioned will not function properly. The standard version will do the trick. http://crystalmark.info/download/index-e.html
Once it's loaded post a screenshot of the program on the drive's tab. It's also pretty clear about fail status, green is good, yellow replace soon, red... you get the idea.
 
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ALittleStar

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Dec 27, 2016
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It doesn't show up in CrystalDiskInfo, "Disk Not Found" if I open the program then connect the drive and refresh the app. If I first connect the drive then open the program, it doesn't load until I disconnect the drive.
 
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Starcruiser

Starcruiser

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May 18, 2013
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Sounds like the drive controller died then. It's nearly impossible to repair, and the repair costs you a new, identical drive anyway. Since you said the data isn't important, it looks like your only option is to return it if it's in warranty, or else replace it out of pocket
 
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ALittleStar

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Dec 27, 2016
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I didn't say that the data is not important. It is very important. Isn't there a solution?
 
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Starcruiser

Starcruiser

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May 18, 2013
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Oh, sorry I guess it was someone else I was thinking of that said their data wasn't critical.
This is an external drive, correct? Try removing the drive from its enclosure and plugging directly into the computer.
If that fails, from what you've told me, the only way to recover your data would be to do a disk controller swap, which is a complex procedure that usually requires soldering. It also requires an exactly identical disk model as a "donor".
 
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ALittleStar

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Dec 27, 2016
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How do I connect it like this?
 
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DR_Luke

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Dec 1, 2016
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If the data is important to you, stop what you are doing and seek professional data recovery assistance. In most cases, a good trustworthy data recovery lab might be able to recover the data somewhere between $300 and $1000 USD, depeding on whether or not the heads are damaged and need to be replaced.

Ignore the advice about the disk controller swap...the odds are very low that it is a PCB issue and much higher that further attempts to power on the drive will only make things worse.
 
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ALittleStar

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Dec 27, 2016
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Using testdisk on my MacBook I created a .dd file of the entire drive, but I canceled the process as I was running out of space. I opened the .dd file with TextEdit and I saw the names of some files there! The problem is that I don't have another drive with 1 TB or more free space. Any other suggestions?
 
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DR_Luke

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A dd image is a full sector-by-sector copy of the drive. If you are able to do that, then you should. But, you will need to have a drive large enough to hold the image file. Once you have it imaged to a file, you can try to recover the data using any data recovery program that will handle the file system used on the drive. I tend to recommend R-Studio because it is a good cross platform data recovery program used by data recovery professionals.
 
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ALittleStar

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Dec 27, 2016
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I made another .dd file for an USB to test if it works and I mounted it in Windows 10(Boot Camp) using OSFMount and it was the entire USB here, so it worked. So it should also work for the hard drive, right?
 
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DR_Luke

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Dec 1, 2016
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Assuming that the file system isn't corrupt, yes. Seeing that it doesn't mount the original drive, it seems likely that it won't mount the copy either.

 
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ALittleStar

Commendable
Dec 27, 2016
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1,510


Here is what diskutil says about the hard drive: http://imgur.com/a/SU1PL http://imgur.com/a/dZmA6 . What do you think?
 
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ALittleStar

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Dec 27, 2016
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The problem is that I do not have another drive and all of my friends have their hard drives nearly full so I can't borrow one. Do you know a program that can view the files of a hard drive even with bad sectors so I can move files and folders one by one on my Mac/Windows/Ubuntu?
 
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